Indian Council of Historical Research

The Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) is an autonomous body of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which had been established by an Administrative Order of the then Ministry of Education. The body, over many years, has provided financial assistance to the historians and direction to the research scholars in their multifarious topics of historical research through established historians and scholars of the country.

ICHR disburses funds for carrying out research to Indian as well as foreign scholars on their applications for fellowships, grants, and symposia, made to the Indian Council of Historical Research or through the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

The ICHR has a rich corpus of funds which has been continued to be deposited with UCO Bank at Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi. It is the only academic institution which chose to keep its deposit with a non-state bank of India.[citation needed]

Based in Delhi with regional centers in Bengaluru (Karnataka) and Guwahati (Assam), the Indian Council for Historical Research has served the scholar community. The Regional Center of the ICHR at Bengaluru was established by eminent liberal historian Professor S Settar, the then Chairman of ICHR, and the then Director of ICHR, Dr Sushil Kumar. The Regional Center at Gauhati was established at the instance of the Minister of State hailing from Assam commenced functioning in the library wing of Guwahati University.

The Government of India has entered into cultural exchange programmes with many countries of the world for an exchange of historians and exchange of views between them.

The ICHR was formed as a literary and charitable society, a fully funded autonomous body of the Ministry of Education with the historians R.S. Sharma the then Head Department of History, Delhi University, nominated as its first chairman, ICHR,[1]Satish Chandra, J.S. Garewal and M.N. Prasad, the then the Director of the National Archives of India at the helm. The present Chairman of ICHR Professor Sudershan Rao is an eminent historian and member secretary is Dr. Anand Shanker Singh [2]

Since the ICHR has continued to be fully funded by the government of India, and all the administrative and fiscal policies of the government are applicable to its affairs, the government of India carries out a periodical review of the functioning of ICHR.

The first review of the ICHR was ordered in 1981, the second in 1999, and the third in March 2011.[3]

ICHR, as mentioned above, is fully funded by grants-in-aid received from the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development. ICHR also receives funds from the various state governments of India, also from other Ministries of the government of India. The government has signed Cultural Exchange Programs (CEP) with many countries with the exception of the US and the UK.[citation needed] The host countries provide funds to the Scholars visiting under CEP.

The audit of the funds/grants-in aid in respect of the ICHR is regularly carried out by the Director General of Audit and Central Revenue (DGA&CR). The audit replies are required to be furnished by a permanent incumbent and the senior-most regular employee of the Council viz the Director, Indian Council of Historical Research.

A copy of the Yearly Audit Report is also marked to the Secretary, Department of Higher Education as also the replies of the Audit Paras/observations.

There is no deadline for submitting applications for fellowships and Grants from the ICHR. These are received throughout the year. However the meetings of the Research Grant Committees are held at regular intervals, after the receipt of the expert opinions upon the submitted applications as to the viability of a research project and/or symposia on the convenience of its chairman. The details of the fellowships and grants made by the ICHR are:

The ICHR, unlike its sister research body, the Indian Council of Social Science Research, which had been formed by an Act of the Parliament, has no office building of its own. It has continued to be housed in a building belonging to the Jawaharlal Nehru University, at 35 Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi, since 1972.

The organization of the ICHR is headed by the Honorary Chairman with the Member Secretary functions as the Secretary of the Governing Council of ICHR during its General Body and specially called for meetings. The Member Secretary, ICHR is functions as the day to day Head of the Department in ICHR.

The Members of the Council of ICHR (Governing Body) are nominated for a period of three Years. The Chairman of the Council of ICHR is nominated by the Department of Education in an honorary capacity and his term is not co-terminus with that of the members of the Constituted Council. The day-to-day functioning of the ICHR is looked after the Director who acts as ex officio Member Secretary of the Council. In 1991, a trend was started to have a separate post of Member Secretary of the ICHR, with Professor MGS Narayanan being selected as the First Member Secretary of ICHR. The institution has been continually embroiled in intra-rivalries between the Chairmen, Member Secretaries and the Directors, at the cost of historical research. The main reason, as per many, has been the deputing of persons from here and there as the Member Secretaries and the undermining the office of the Chairman and the Director of the institution.

Four persons to represent government who shall be nominated by the Government of India and which shall include one representative each of the Ministry of Education, the Department of Culture and the Ministry of Finance, and

the Member Secretary, who is appointed by the Council of the ICHR on deputation basis for a period of three years, with the approval of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

The ICHR publishes online as well as on print media. The Chairman's Column, re-termed as Chairman's Diary by its current incumbent, has only recently been updated in January 2015 after almost a year. The list of the Members of the Council, even though revised by the Government is still as old as July 2014, carrying even the names who are no longer members of the ICHR.

The ICHR publishes two journals: the Indian Historical Review (bi-annually) and Itihas (in Hindi). It also provides publication subsidies to seminars, books, congress proceedings and journals. The editing and publication has been outsourced to certain publishing houses.